Tuesday, September 24, 2013

My friend Kimberly told me a while about that she had made peacock feathers using wafer paper. I was intrigued, so I immediately ordered a package. And there it sat, for months and months, until I finally needed to make my Gatsby inspired cake for the recent photo shoot we did. It was so easy to make I thought I would share with you my loyal readers.

The first thing we need to do is get our feather pattern. I used this image and enlarged it to the size I wanted on my iPad. Then I put my parchment paper over it and traced the basic shape of the feather with my marker.

Now that we have an image to cut, just place your wafer paper over the parchment paper. You can see right through it! Just cut it gently with your Exacto knife on the cutting board. The wafer paper cuts easily and with a light hand you won't even cut through the parchment paper.

Pop out your feather and place it back on the cutting board.

Don't draw on YOUR feather!

I made these lines on the wafer paper with a pen, but these are for illustration purposes only. These lines just represent how you will cut the blades of the feather.

These spring loaded sewing scissors work pretty well, they make tiny cuts, but I found it a little hard to get the cuts deep enough into the feather.

A very sharp Exacto knife goes more quickly and allows you to vary your cuts. Keep cutting the blades of the feather until your done with both sides. If you get a couple of jagged edges, it's OK - it's a bird feather!

Now it's time to ruffle some feathers! Just thumb through the blades to separate them a little. More if you really want a rustic look!

Now your feather is almost finished! To put on the cake I used some white wire to go the length of the feather (with some left over to insert) and I adhered it with a little Sassie Sap sugar glue or some tylose glue.

If you enjoyed the tutorial, leave me a comment here and let me know - and don't forget to stop back in next week!

FULL DISCLOSURE: As a member
of the Amazon Affiliate program, I receive a small commission if you
buy a product from the links on my blog. I actually own the products I
recommend and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Hi Candi! I wasn't sure if rice paper and wafer paper were the same thing, but I know they're similar. I bet it would work just fine on rice paper too. If you try it, pop back in and let us know how it works, OK?

Thanks for the great tutorial! Chiming in on Candi's question, I have cut shapes from both rice paper and wafer paper, and wafer (potato starch) was much easier to work with. It was almost like regular paper. My rice paper cracked and shattered easily when cut dry, and got gummy when lightly dampened. But rice paper is easier to find locally and less expensive, so its good for quick projects with the kids, with simple shapes (they color with food markers and I cut them out).